Multiculturalism Is Anti-Culture

In his nearly forgotten book Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, T.S. Eliot observed that “One people in isolation is not aware of having a ‘culture’ at all.” Until I was 12, I lived in western New York state. Then, my family moved to South Carolina for a few years. I was immediately aware of the elements of Southern culture because it was so different from what I had experienced before. But I didn’t understand that I also had a culture; I just thought the Southerners (how they talked, what they ate, what they wore) were weird. At 15, we moved back to Rochester, and for the first time, I discovered that Western New York had a culture too. Things that would have seemed completely neutral and unremarkable as a boy, now struck me as distinctive (how we talked, what we ate, what we wore) and unique to a particular people in that particular place. This is the phenomenon that Eliot discusses: “culture” only becomes an object of concern after an encounter with cultural difference. Read Full Article »